Individual Course Listings

Retirement Planning and Health Care in the Age of Obamacare

Elective

Credits: 3

The number of elderly Americans is
projected to increase significantly over the next few decades. Life expectancy
is still increasing; the economy and job growth are sluggish; millions of
Americans lack adequate health insurance; health care costs are rising at a
rate far higher than the general inflation rate; and the Administration and
state governments are attempting to implement the Affordable Care Act in the
face of budgetary constraints and implacable opposition from certain groups. In view of these factors, issues
involving retirement planning, health care and the elderly will continue to be
important for the foreseeable future, and will offer public and private job
opportunities to our graduates. Accordingly, I think that it would be
beneficial for us to offer a course that will give them a solid introduction to
these topics without excessive duplication of issued already adequately covered
in other courses. The new course will replace the existing Employee Benefits
course which we have offered for many years, though not every year.

The course will cover:

1.Federal pension
law under ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code;

2.Social Security
and Medicare coverage and benefits, including policy and financial issues; and

3. The major
new rules under the Affordable Care Act relating to access to health care, how
health care is provided and financed, patient protections, employer-provided
benefits and quality improvement.